Business Strategy and Life-Style: Owners of Combine-Harvesters in North Malaysia

Abstract

The construction of major infrastructural facilities -- dams, irrigation and drainage networks -- and the subsequent introduction of technological innnovations and institutional changes have been of decisive significance for the recent transformation of agriculture in the Muda area of north Malaysia. Based on a long history of rice cultivation as a commercial crop, the introduction of high-yielding varieties and double-cropping in the early 1970s led to an enormous increase in productivity and to a transformation of husbandry practices in paddy production. In the operations of nursery preparation, transplanting and weeding, agriculture has become heavily dependent on chemical inputs such as fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides. The agricultural operations of land preparation and harvesting have become highly mechanized, while transplanting -- which requires intensive labour input -- has almost disappeared, being replaced by direct-seeding and broadcasting.